Two veteran FBI agents shot dead, three injured while serving a home warrant in child-pornography investigation

In a tragic turn of events, two FBI agents were killed and three others were left injured in a shooting while they were executing a search warrant at a home in Florida. The incident occurred shortly after 6 am at a home on Nob Hill Road. The FBI stated that officers were there to serve a federal court-ordered search warrant in a case involving violent crimes against children. Officials said they were aiming to seize evidence in a child-pornography investigation. However, things didn’t go as planned and the suspect began shooting and then barricaded himself inside the complex.

As the incident was unfolding, law enforcement officials shut down a main thoroughfare in the area advised nearby residents to remain in their homes, according to the Sunrise Police Department. “There were FBI agents and SWAT all over the place,” said Alyssa Ostroff, a 28-year-old living in an apartment building next to the suspect who woke up to find police lights flashing. A little after 9 A.M., she heard law-enforcement personnel on a megaphone say they had the area surrounded and asked the suspect to come out with his hands up. “It got really quiet after that,” she said.

Special Agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger were shot and killed in the shootout, FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a statement. Of the remaining three agents, two were injured and taken to a hospital where they were stabilized while the third did not require hospitalization.

36-year-old Alfin was born in New York and joined the bureau in 2009 in Albany, said George Piro, special agent in charge of the Miami field office and who had been working with him since 2017. The late FBI agent is survived by a wife and child.

Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger had spent more than six years investigating child-exploitation cases and had been involved in high-profile cases, added Piro. According to Nicholas Weaver, a computer security expert at the University of California at Berkeley, Agent Alfin’s relentless work in investigating child exploitation not only broke legal ground but also let to the rescue of hundreds of children.

“The FBI will always honor their ultimate sacrifice and will be forever grateful for their bravery. We continue to stand by our FBI Family, and the families of these special agents, in the days to come, bringing every resource we can to get through this together.”